


you steal my pain away

by bemusedlybespectacled (ardentintoxication)



Series: Maleval Week 2014 [4]
Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Maleval Week, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 08:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2018535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentintoxication/pseuds/bemusedlybespectacled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Between Stefan's death and Aurora's coronation, Diaval comes down with bird flu.</p><p>For Maleval Week: the day 4 prompt was "Cooking for the Other (+Sick Day)."</p>
            </blockquote>





	you steal my pain away

It takes him suddenly. On their third morning visiting the palace, he wakes with a blinding headache and overwhelming nausea, and for a moment he wonders if he's been poisoned, or perhaps hungover. Though, he reasons, if he'd been poisoned, he'd be dead already, and he hasn't had more than a few sips of wine since concluding that humans (who can't seem to get enough of the stuff) have awful taste.

The servants have left his and Maleficent's rooms alone - probably afraid that they'll curse someone, though Aurora has tried her best to convince them that Diaval, at the very least, has no powers to curse them _with_ \- and so he's left alone, in a giant cloud of a bed, rummaging around one-handed to find a chamber pot to vomit into. He manages a few dry retches, spits up bile, but nothing to relieve the pounding in his temples or the sensation that all his limbs are suddenly much heavier and aching to the bone.

By the time Maleficent comes sweeping into his room, he is thoroughly miserable. Snapping open his bedcurtains, she takes in the tangled bedclothes, the chamber pot by the bed, and his sweaty, flushed face. Whatever she was about to say, she keeps it to herself.

"You weren't at breakfast," she says. "Aurora missed you."

"Tell her I'm sorry," says Diaval, his voice a dull rasp.

Maleficent presses the inside of her wrist to his forehead. "You have a fever," she saids, her brows knitting together. "A high one."

"That doesn't make sense," says Diaval vaguely. "It's cold. Your hands are cold."

Maleficent purses her lips, thinking. "Stay there," she says at last, and she turns on her heel and walks out of the room. Diaval doesn't point out that he doesn't want to leave anyway.

* * *

He dozes off, though for how long he doesn't know. He wakes to Maleficent's hands on his face, feeling the side of his neck. He frowns. Maleficent might pet him in bird form, but he isn't a bird right now.

"What's happening?" he asks.

Her hands leave him. "Drink this," she says, pressing a cup to his lips. He hasn't drunk anything all morning and he gulps it down gratefully: cooled tea. Something earthy and unsweetened. "It will get your fever down, soothe any aches you have." He finishes the cup and she refills it, this time with cool water.

"I can't change you back," she says. "What you have- it's deadly in birds, do you understand? I could try to heal you magically, but you'll get well anyway in a few days even without that."

He shakes his head, though the movement is jarring.

"Alright," she says. She starts to sponge the sweat from his face with a damp cloth.

"Don't-"

"Don't what?"

"Don't leave me alone," he whispers. "Not while I'm like this."

Maleficent dampens the cloth again, wringing it dry. "I'll leave when necessary," she says, "to fetch things. But I won't abandon you. That, I promise."

* * *

His dreams are strange and fragmented, his waking hours confused and disjointed. One moment he's convinced that she's in the room with him, only for her to walk in the door again when he blinks. He tries to speak past the fire in his throat, but she doesn't seem to hear him. He feels her cool hands smooth the hair back from his forehead, or thinks he does. She says nothing other than orders, to drink this tea or that tincture, to sit up or lie still. He obeys her, his mistress, though every part of him aches. Then, darkness.

* * *

His fever doesn't break until the third day. Not once does she break her word.

"Why?" he asks, when he's at last coherent.

She gives him a wry smile. "You saved my life, back in that throne room. I think we both know what I'm supposed to do in return."


End file.
